"Conan Exiles": Upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 only available on Steam

“Conan Exiles” receives a major engine upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 with the Enhanced Edition, eight years after its release. The major free upgrade promises better graphics, snappier performance, and comfort improvements – however, exclusively for players who purchased the multiplayer survival game on Steam. The “Enhanced Edition” is not coming to consoles, the Epic Games Store, or the Microsoft Store.

This means that buyers of the game in the Epic and Microsoft Store will continue to have to play the old version of the game – or pay to buy it again on Steam. They can no longer even play on official servers with their current version.

The developers at Funcom inform about this in a blog post. They explain why consoles are being excluded in more detail in a Reddit post: A launch across different platforms could have diminished quality, they write. This is understandable, as PS4 and Xbox One are technically outdated. However, the post does not explain why only the Steam version on the PC platform is being updated. There can be no technical reasons for this.

Several reasons are conceivable

Since most players are likely to be on Steam anyway, there has been no major outcry over this very unusual procedure so far: The Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store are generally not very popular among gamers. Nevertheless, the strategy should also worry Steam users: If developers start to favor individual stores over others, everyone could eventually end up on the losing side.

Several reasons are conceivable why Funcom might have decided on this course of action. The studio may have wanted to avoid going through the certification processes in the Epic Games Store and Microsoft Store again. Perhaps it was an concern of the developers to bundle players on one PC platform. Perhaps they consider mod support via the Steam Workshop to be essential. Perhaps the PC player numbers outside of Steam are so negligible that they don't want to waste any thought on them at all.

Second-class buyers

For buyers who purchased in the Epic Games Store or Microsoft Store, this is cold comfort. While Steam players can look forward to a major free upgrade, their purchased product is actively being made worse. With their standard version, they can now no longer even play on official servers: All PC servers are being switched to the Unreal Engine 5 version from Steam. For players of the other PC stores, this means they will have to play solo or on self-hosted servers. Furthermore, they will receive no further patches and support in the future, writes Funcom.

The servers for Xbox and Playstation will remain at Unreal Engine 4 level, so no changes are to be expected here. Patches will also continue to be delivered for this version. Funcom does not rule out that consoles and other PC stores may eventually be upgraded to the Enhanced Edition at a later date. However, there are currently no concrete plans for this.

(dahe)